Short answer: Tap any face below to copy it. To get them without a copy button: on Windows press Windows key + . and open the Kaomoji tab; on iPhone add the Japanese Kana keyboard and tap the ^_^ key; on Android switch Gboard to the Japanese layout.
Tap to copy
Want stylised letters rather than faces? The fancy text generator converts anything you type into script, bold and outlined Unicode.
What a kaomoji actually is
Kaomoji (顔文字) is Japanese for “face characters.” Unlike Western emoticons, they read upright rather than sideways — no head-tilting required — and unlike emoji, they are not single characters. Every kaomoji is a small string of ordinary Unicode code points assembled to look like a face.
That distinction is the whole reason they behave the way they do. Emoji are one character that a font draws as a picture. Kaomoji are ten or twelve separate characters that happen to line up. Nothing in Unicode knows they form a face, which is why they survive in plain-text places emoji can’t reach — and why they break in ways emoji never do.
Take the shrug apart and it’s ordinary parts:
| Piece | Character | Code point | Unicode name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arms | ¯ | U+00AF | Macron |
| Left shoulder | \ | U+005C | Reverse solidus |
| Body | _ | U+005F | Low line |
| Face | ツ | U+30C4 | Katakana letter TU |
| Right shoulder | / | U+002F | Solidus |
The “face” is a Japanese katakana letter pronounced tsu. It means nothing here — it just looks like a smirk. The Lenny face is built the same way: two degree signs (U+00B0) for eyes, an inverted glottal stop (U+0296) for a mouth, and three combining marks — U+0361 and U+035C — that arch over and under to form the eyebrows. New to how any of this is encoded? Start with what Unicode is.
Windows
Windows has a built-in kaomoji picker, and almost nobody knows it exists:
- Put your cursor in any text field.
- Press Windows key + . (or Windows key + ;).
- Click the Kaomoji tab — the (^_^) icon.
- Browse the categories: classic, happy, greeting, acting cute, sad.
- Click one to insert it.
That’s the whole flow. The same panel holds emoji, GIFs and a symbols tab — see the Windows emoji shortcut for the rest of it.
For ones you use constantly, add a text replacement instead: Settings → Time & language → Typing → Advanced keyboard settings, or use clipboard history with Windows key + V.
Mac
macOS has no kaomoji picker. The Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) holds single characters, and kaomoji are multi-character strings, so they simply aren’t in it. Anyone who tells you to look there hasn’t tried it.
The real answer on Mac is Text Replacement, which syncs across your iPhone and iPad via iCloud:
- Apple menu → System Settings → Keyboard.
- Click Text Replacements, then +.
- In Replace, type a trigger —
;shrugworks well, since the semicolon prevents accidental firing. - In With, paste the kaomoji.
- Click Add.
Now typing ;shrug anywhere on any of your Apple devices expands to the full face. Our text replacement guide covers the same trick for symbols generally.
iPhone and iPad
Apple hides a full kaomoji library inside the Japanese keyboard:
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard.
- Choose Japanese, then Kana.
- In any app, press and hold the globe key and switch to the Japanese keyboard.
- Tap the ^_^ key next to the emoji key.
- Swipe through the rows, or tap the arrow to expand the full grid.
You never have to type Japanese to use it — the kaomoji list is right there on the symbol row. Switch back with the globe key when you’re done.
Android
Gboard carries kaomoji in its Japanese input:
- Settings → System → Languages & input → On-screen keyboard → Gboard → Languages → Add keyboard → Japanese.
- Switch to the Japanese layout with the globe key.
- Open the symbol/emoji panel and pick the emoticon category.
If you’d rather not add a keyboard, Gboard’s clipboard (the clipboard icon in the toolbar) will pin a kaomoji permanently once you’ve copied it from the buttons above.
Linux and ChromeOS
Neither ships a kaomoji picker. The practical routes are your desktop’s clipboard manager, a text expander such as Espanso, or the copy buttons on this page. On ChromeOS, pin them in the clipboard with Search + V.
The backslash problem — why the shrug loses an arm
Paste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ into Slack, Discord, Reddit, GitHub or any Markdown editor and it often comes out as ¯(ツ)/¯ — the left arm gone.
Two formatting rules collide here:
- The backslash is an escape character. In Markdown,
\tells the app “show the next character literally” — so the backslash itself disappears, having done its job on the underscore. - Underscores mean italics. The
_(ツ)_in the middle is a matched pair, so some apps italicise the face instead of showing the underscores.
The fix: type a second backslash. Send ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ and the reader sees ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. In heavily escaped editors you may need ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯.
The other fix: pick a face without a backslash. (◕‿◕), ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ and (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ have no escape characters in them at all and paste cleanly everywhere.
If you’re storing a kaomoji in a text replacement, store the unescaped version and add the extra backslash when you’re posting into a Markdown app — otherwise it’ll be doubled everywhere else.
Where they break
Kaomoji reach further than emoji — terminals, commit messages, old email clients, plain-text forms — because they’re ordinary characters. But their parts come from Japanese, IPA, box-drawing and geometric blocks, and font coverage there is uneven.
- Box-drawing pieces (┻ ━ ┬ ─, U+2500 block) are near-universal, but only line up perfectly in a monospace font. In proportional text the flipped table looks slightly crooked. That’s a font issue, not a broken character.
- IPA letters like ʕ ʔ ᴥ and ʖ are missing from some older display fonts.
- Combining marks in the Lenny face can stack oddly in inputs with tight line-height, or get stripped by fields that normalise text.
- Boxes or question marks mean a coverage gap — see symbol showing as a box.
Test a kaomoji in the destination app before you build a text replacement around it.
Accessibility — the part nobody covers
A screen reader has no idea a kaomoji is a face. It announces every code point by its Unicode name, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is read aloud as something close to “macron, reverse solidus, low line, left parenthesis, katakana letter tu, right parenthesis, low line, solidus, macron.” The Lenny face is worse, because the combining marks are announced too.
Practical rules:
- Don’t put a kaomoji in a heading, link text, button label or alt text. Those get read in full and can’t be skipped.
- In body text, follow it with the meaning the first time: “¯_(ツ)_/¯ (shrug)”.
- In decorative use on a web page, wrap it in
aria-hidden="true"and provide a text equivalent.
How screen readers announce symbols goes deeper on this.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| The shrug’s left arm disappears | The app ate the backslash. Send ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ instead. |
| The face comes out in italics | Underscores triggered Markdown italics. Escape them: ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. |
| Boxes or question marks appear | Font coverage gap on the IPA or katakana parts. Pick a simpler face, or change fonts. |
| The table flip looks crooked | It only aligns in a monospace font. Expected in proportional text. |
| Nothing in the Character Viewer on Mac | Correct — it holds single characters only. Use Text Replacement instead. |
| The Windows panel has no Kaomoji tab | Tabs vary by build and region. Update Windows, or use clipboard history (Win + V). |
| Text replacement fires when I don’t want it | Start the trigger with a symbol — ;shrug, not shrug. |
Recap
| If you’re on | Do this |
|---|---|
| Windows | Win + . → Kaomoji tab |
| Mac | System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements |
| iPhone or iPad | Add the Japanese Kana keyboard → tap ^_^ |
| Android | Add Japanese to Gboard, or pin to the clipboard |
| Linux / ChromeOS | Clipboard manager or a text expander |
| Posting to Slack, Discord or Reddit | Double the backslash: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ |
Frequently asked questions
What is a kaomoji?
Kaomoji (顔文字, “face characters”) are Japanese-style emoticons that read upright instead of sideways. Unlike emoji, they are not single characters — each one is a short string of ordinary Unicode code points arranged to look like a face.
How do I type the shrug ¯_(ツ)_/¯ without copying it?
On Windows, press Windows key + . and open the Kaomoji tab. On Mac and iPhone, create a text replacement such as ;shrug under Keyboard settings, which then syncs across your Apple devices via iCloud.
Why does the shrug lose its left arm in Slack and Discord?
Because the backslash is an escape character in Markdown, so the app consumes it while escaping the underscore that follows. Type a second backslash — send ¯\(ツ)/¯ — and the reader sees the complete face.
What is the ツ in the shrug?
It is U+30C4, the Japanese katakana letter TU, pronounced tsu. It has no meaning in the kaomoji; it was chosen purely because its shape reads as a smirking face.
Can I use kaomoji in a username or a heading?
You can, but you shouldn’t in headings, links or buttons. Screen readers announce every code point by its Unicode name, so a kaomoji is read out as a long list of character names that a listener cannot skip.
Why do kaomoji work in places emoji don’t?
Because they are made of plain text characters rather than pictographs. Terminals, commit messages, plain-text email and older applications that strip or fail to render emoji will usually display kaomoji without any trouble.
Written by Igor R. Tested on Windows 11, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, iOS and Android. Last updated August 2026. Symbol code points follow the Unicode Standard.